This section serves as a reference for useful resources relating to Japanese American history, using primary and secondary sources, conducting oral histories, and exploring current events. It contains links to websites as well as listings of printed and video materials.

Links to Web Resources

The following list is by no means comprehensive, but instead is intended to provide links to websites that are rich in primary sources, including photographs and documents. The last section contains curricular materials.

Ito, Kazuo. Issei: A History of Japanese Immigrants in North America. Shinichiro Nakamura, Jean S. Gerard, trans. Seattle: Executive Committee for the Publication of Issei: A History of Japanese Immigrants in North America, 1973. [ link ]

Kurashige, Lon. Japanese American Celebration and Conflict : A History of Ethnic Identity and Festival, 1934-1990. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. [ link ]

Matsumoto, Valerie. Farming the Home Place: A Japanese American Community in California, 1919-1982. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993. [ link ]

Modell, John. The Economics and Politics of Racial Accommodation: The Japanese of Los Angeles 1900-1942. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1977. [ link ]

Howard, John. Concentration Camps on the Home Front: Japanese Americans in the House of Jim Crow. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. [ link ]

Kashima, Tetsuden. Judgment Without Trial: Japanese American Imprisonment during World War II. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2002. [ link ]

Robinson, Greg. A Tragedy of Democracy: Japanese Confinement in North America. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009. [ link ]

Weglyn, Michi. Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America’s Concentration Camps. New York: William Morrow & Co., 1976. Updated ed. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1996. [ link ]

Why It Happened and Administration

Daniels, Roger. Concentration Camps, U.S.A.: Japanese Americans and World War II. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971. Concentration Camps, North America: Japanese in the United States and Canada during World War II. Malabar, FL: Robert E. Krieger Publishing Co., 1981. [ link ]

Ichioka, Yuji, ed. and introduction. Views from Within: The Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Study. Los Angeles: University of California at Los Angeles, 1989. [ link ]

Muller, Eric L. American Inquisition: The Hunt for Japanese American Disloyalty in World War II. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007. [ link ]

Robinson, Greg. By Order of the President: FDR and the Internment of Japanese Americans. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001. [ link ]

de Nevers, Klancy Clark. The Colonel and the Pacifist: Karl Bendetsen, Perry Saito and the Incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Foreword by Roger Daniels. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2004. [ link ]

The View from Within: Japanese American Art from the Internment Camps, 1942-1945. Los Angeles: Japanese American National Museum, UCLA Wight Art Gallery, and UCLA Asian American Studies Center, 1992. [ link ]

Biography

Christgau, John. KOKOMO JOE: The Story of the First Japanese American Jockey in the U.S. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009. [ link ]

Bahr, Diana Meyers. The Unquiet Nisei: An Oral History of the Life of Sue Kunitomi Embrey. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. [ link ]

Shibutani, Tamotsu. The Derelicts of Company K: A Sociological Study of Demoralization. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978. [ link ]

Yost, Israel A. S. Combat Chaplain: The Personal Story of the World War II Chaplain of the Japanese American 100th Battalion. Edited by Monica Elizabeth Yost and Michael Markrich. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2006. [ link ]

Dissidents

Castelnuovo, Shirley. Soldiers of Conscience: Japanese American Military Resisters in World War II. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2008. [ link ]

Collins, Donald E. Native American Aliens: Disloyalty and the Renunciation of Citizenship by Japanese Americans during World War II. Westport, CN: Greenwood Press, 1985. [ link ]

Irons, Peter. Justice at War: The Story of the Japanese American Internment Cases. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. [ link ]

Manbo, Bill T., and Eric Muller L. Colors of Confinement: Rare Kodachrome Photographs of Japanese American Incarceration in World War II. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012. [ link ]

Rawitsch, Mark. The House on Lemon Street: Japanese Pioneers and the American Dream. Boulder: University Press of Chicago, 2012. [ link ]

Robinson, Greg. After Camp: Portraits in Midcentury Japanese American Life and Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012. [ link ]

__________. Pacific Citizens: Larry and Guyo Tajiri and Japanese American Journalism in the World War II Era. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2012. [ link ]

Shopes, Linda. “Making Sense of Oral History.” Downloadable manual on interpreting oral history, available from George Mason University, History Matters: The U.S. Survey on the Web, Making Sense of Evidence series, February 2002. [ link ]

Printed Materials

“Oral History Evaluation Guidelines”, 2nd edition, 1991. This publication has been adopted by the National Endowment for the Humanities as the standard for conducting oral history. It is available free on the Oral History Association website, or you may order a printed copy. [ link ]

“Oral History for the Family Historian: A Basic Guide.” Linda Barnickel 2006. Provides practical guidance to the novice who wishes to conduct a family oral history interview. It is designed to help the interviewer/researcher avoid common mistakes by effectively planning, conducting, and preserving a family oral history interview. It also contains an extensive list of sample questions, a legal release form, and other suggested resources. [ link ]

“Oral History and the Law” by John A. Neuenschwander 2002. 3rd edition. A completely new revision of an Oral History Association best-seller which provides an introduction to the many legal issues relating to oral history practice. This edition looks at the latest case law and how new technologies, such as videotaping, pose new problems. Appendices contain sample legal forms and copyright forms. Written for the layperson. [ link ]

“Using Oral History in Community History Projects.” Laurie Mercier & Madeline Buckendorf 1992. Offers concrete suggestions for planning, organizing, and undertaking oral history in community settings. Provides a step-by-step guide to project planning and establishing project objectives, with suggestions about identifying resources and securing funding. The authors address common problems encountered in executing such projects, and present a series of case studies of successful community oral history projects. Bibliography. [ link ]

Related Topics

Links to Web Resources

September 11th Connections

Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC) (“Beyond Blame: Reacting to the Terrorist Attack,” a curriculum for middle and high school students. Developed by the EDC in partnership with The Justice Project and Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation. 2001. Free publication available on the EDC website.)

“Us and Them” Facing History and Ourselves (a reading and lesson designed to deepen thinking and stimulate discussion about the horrific events of September 11, 2001, reveals how difference can become suspect.)

Printed Materials

Aleut Exclusion During World War II

Kohlhoff, Dean. When the Wind Was a River: Aleut Evacuation in World War II. Seattle: University of Washington Press, in association with Aleutian/Pribilof Islands Association, 1995.

Asian Pacific American History and Issues

Asian Women United of California. Making Waves: An Anthology of Writings by and About Asian American Women. Boston: Beacon Press, 1989.

Topaz concentration camp opened #OTD in 1942. It's best known for the fatal shooting of an inmate by a camp sentry… https://t.co/DqeWeGiRMf

“'Concentration camp' is more than a rhetorical exercise, more than a historical analogy. It makes us reckon with o… https://t.co/bJtlwNKplo

A new book claims Japanese American incarceration was caused by "security concerns," not racism. Instead of reading… https://t.co/Vs89lUORnv

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Most of the (relatively few) non-Nikkei in the camps were those married to Japanese Americans. It’s estimated there… https://t.co/3pdBQSDl3p

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